I previously blogged about Deborah E. Lipstadt on this blog post: https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2011/01/04/denying-the-holocaust/
Deborah E. Lipstadt is Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University. She chairs the US Holocaust Museum’s Committee on Anti-Semitism and State Sponsored Holocaust Denial. She was a member of the Presidential delegation to the OSCE Conference last week in Berlin.
This quote is from a news article, which you can read in full here:
Jews face an inner spiritual and psychological assault. Young people described being Jewish as having become a negative, a burden. “We are continuously on the defensive. It’s depressing.” Guy, a young Dutchman, recalled that not long ago a bunch of his Jewish friends gathered to celebrate his birthday. “What,” he asked us with an ironic smile, “do a group of young men talk about when they gather to drink beer and enjoy themselves? The Holocaust, anti-Semitism, and insecurity.”
In certain countries children who attend Jewish schools are warned — if not “forbidden” — from wearing anything that would single them out as Jews. No school insignias on the book bags, no school symbols on their jackets, no kippot. Nothing. […]
[H]ere are right wing national parties, such as the Golden Dawn in Greece, which fall back on traditional hostility towards Jews. But there are also the European cultural elites, most of whom have remained decidedly silent as this scourge grows. Situated on the political left, they are critical of Israel and have conflated anti-Israel and anti-Semitic hostility. They seem unconcerned that segments of Europe are on the path to once again becoming Judenrein. One would think that but seventy years after the Holocaust the possibility would horrify them.
What a revolting development this is! Just when the Jews want to leave Israel and go back to Germany, there is renewed anti-Semitism in Europe.
The article, written by Deborah E. Lipstadt, starts out with this quote:
Ten years ago the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe convened a conference on European anti-Semitism. Last week it met to assess what had happened in the past decade. The signs are not good.
While a good part of the meeting was dedicated to official presentations by the participating nations, it was what one heard in the hallway over coffee that was most significant. At one point the White House delegation, of which I was part, met with representatives of an array of European Jewish communities. What we heard left me shaken.
We knew about the murders in the Brussels Jewish museum, the children gunned down on the Toulouse schoolyard, the fate of Ilan Halimi, a young French Jew who had been lured by a group of Muslims who then held him captive, tortured and eventually murdered him. We were aware of the violent demonstrations, assaults on synagogues, and the aggressive rhetoric — including “Jews to the gas” — that had occurred in various European cities. We anticipated that this would be our informants’ main concern.
While they certainly worried about this type of violence, what weighed upon them more was a “changed daily routine” that leaves them feeling “under threat.” Schools and Jewish institutions are under heavy guard. While this reassured some people, other parents described how, when they deposit their children at the Jewish schools and see the visibly armed guards protecting the site, rather than feeling reassured, they are reminded of the Toulouse schoolyard and the murdered children.
Why can’t the Jews catch a break? The Jews have never done anyone any harm. What’s not to like?
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